The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 61, November, 1862. Various

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by about four thousand men possessing more than a thousand serfs each. The pinching propensities of the small owners were best represented by nearly fifty thousand men possessing less than twenty serfs each.12

      The serfs might be divided into two great classes. The first comprised those working under the old, or corvée, system,—giving, generally, three days in the week to the tillage of the owner's domain; the second comprised those working under the new, or obrok, system,—receiving a payment fixed by the owner and assessed by the community to which the serfs belonged.

      The character of the serfs has been moulded by the serf-system.

      They have a simple shrewdness, which, under a better system, had made them enterprising; but this quality has degenerated into cunning and cheatery,—the weapons which the hopelessly oppressed always use.

      They have a reverence for things sacred, which, under a better system, might have given the nation a strengthening religion; but they now stand among the most religious peoples on earth, and among the least moral. To the besmutted picture of Our Lady of Kazan they are ever ready to burn wax and oil; to Truth and Justice they constantly omit the tribute of mere common honesty. They keep the Church fasts like saints; they keep the Church feasts like satyrs.

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      1

      The old-fashioned flat-boats were so called.

      2

      See Gerebtzoff, Histoire de la Civilisation en Russie.

      3

      Haxthausen.

      4

      The late Samuel Colt.

      5

      Haxthausen, Études sur la Situation Intérieure, etc., de la Russie.

      6

      Gurowski,—also Wolowski in Revue des Deux Mondes.

1

The old-fashioned flat-boats were so called.

2

See Gerebtzoff, Histoire de la Civilisation en Russie.

3

Haxthausen.

4

The late Samuel Colt.

5

Haxthausen, Études sur la Situation Intérieure, etc., de la Russie.

6

Gurowski,—also Wolowski in Revue des Deux Mondes.

7

For further growth of the sentimental fashion thus set, see Memoirs of the Princess Daschkaw, Vol. I. p. 383.

8

For proofs of this see Haxthausen.

9

Gurowski says that they used brilliantly "Cursed beCanaan," etc.

10

For choice specimens of these reasonings, see Von Erman, Archiv für Wissenschaftliche Kunde von Russland.

11

This sketch is given from notes taken at the audience.

12

Gerebtzoff, Histoire de la Civilisation en Russie,—Wolowski, in Revue des Deux Mondes,—and Tegoborski, Commentaries on the Productive Forces of Russia, Vol. I. p. 221.